Gov. Jan Brewer on March 18 unveiled a Web site dedicated to tracking Arizona's portion of the federal stimulus package.

The site, http://www.azrecovery.gov/, provides information regarding the money made available to Arizona under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The $787 billion package that was passed by Congress and signed by President Obama in February includes about $4.2 billion that Arizona is eligible for.

The site includes information from the federal government on the distribution and use of the stimulus money and information from the state on how it is using the money. It will also include state and federal press releases regarding ARRA dollars and interactive grant applications.

In early March, Brewer sent a letter to Obama in which she applied for Arizona's portion of the stimulus money, though she has not applied for most specific portions of the money while gubernatorial and legislative staff waits for information from the federal government on what criteria the state must meet to be eligible for different funding streams.

Much of the funding includes maintenance-of-effort requirements or other commitments that states must meet in order to be eligible. Brewer has said she will wants Arizona to receive its fair share, but said she does not want to take any stimulus dollars that require spending increases by the state or long-term financial commitments that will continue after the ARRA money is gone.

Governors Bobby Jindal, of Louisiana, and Mark Sanford, of South Carolina, have publicly rejected millions of dollars for unemployment insurance, for example, because they would require increases spending commitments by their states. Brewer is still evaluating what kinds of fiscal requirements the state would have to meet if it accepted the unemployment insurance dollars, her office said, and she has not determined whether she will accept the money.

Brewer has officially accepted two portions of the stimulus money – $50 million that will be used to backfill funding cut from a Department of Economic Security program that provides childcare for the working poor, and about $350 million for highway projects across the state. Both funding sources included provisions that required swift actions by the state.